Re: The brain and the hand

>...I agree that it's much more a function of>the combination of BIPEDALISM with the wetware behind the hardware, than the>hand alone. The major breakthrough that happened with Australopithicus was>freeing up the hand. As you say, John, the big question in primate evolution>is what pushed us upright.

I don't know if we'll eventually find data to support such a theory, but it
resonates with me. I like the idea that the quality of projecting our wills
into the physical world out past the limited reach of our bodies, and our
minds into the future to accurately model trajectories, pushed us from the
eternal now of animal life into the screwed-up difficult amazing world of
human conciousness.

That book, btw, is an excellent summer read. Part travel log, part
biography, part adventure story, part neuro-anthropology text. Calvin knows
that he's in mostly uncharted territory, and approaches the questions he
raises as an explorer, not a prophet.